


Disguise, I See Thou Art a Wickedness

by peristeronic



Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare, Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Carnival, Claudio (Much Ado About Nothing) is a shitty husband, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Crossdressing, Dubcon flirting I guess??, F/F, Identity Issues, Infidelity, Kissing, Write the femslash you wish to see in the world, a pair so rare it doesn't even exist, background Antonio/Sebastian (Twelfth Night), one-sided Olivia/Viola, rated T for a brief sex dream and the aforementioned kissing, sexual innuendo, writing dialogue in the Shakespeare fandom is hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2020-10-28 12:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20778470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peristeronic/pseuds/peristeronic
Summary: Needing to get away from her life--mostly, her difficult feelings about a pair of twins--Olivia travels to Venice for Carnival. There, she takes a page out of Viola's book by donning men's clothes, and she meets Hero, who is also looking to escape for a while.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting the first scene of this fic now to force myself to actually finish the rest of the damn thing. Unfortunately, that won't work, because nobody will read this fic, because why would anybody click on this?? Anyway, enjoy.

On the night that Olivia arrived, Venice looked like a city of fairies. The halos of lanterns and torches floated on black water, illuminating a riot of color on all sides. Shouts and peals of laughter echoed through the canals and alleyways. As the gondola brought her closer, Olivia could catch glimpses of the masks that the revelers wore, sometimes glinting gold in the torchlight, sometimes made mysterious and ghoulish by dark shadows. 

She had seen many a masquerade before—Illyrians loved them. It appealed to something in their national character, perhaps. As bewildering as the chaos was, it was deeply familiar—only awe-inspiring in its magnitude. This was Carnival, and all of Venice was celebrating. 

An unnamed feeling arose in Olivia, a feeling both of being a stranger and of being at home. Of finding herself in a place that was familiar and enjoying the ability to walk it unrecognized. In the morning, Olivia decided, she must visit a mask maker. As soon as she had a mask of her own, she would join in the festivities.

The gondola slid through the wine-dark water and carried her to the _palazzo_ of a distant cousin of hers, where she would stay the next seven nights. Thankfully, the _palazzo_ did not overlook the Grand Canal, but the sounds of Carnival could still be heard within her room with the heavy curtains drawn. It did not bother her. 

Once, she had resolved to shut out the world with a veil and cloister herself like a nun, but that had not lasted long. Just long enough to fall for a handsome stranger. Now she was married to a husband who did not share her bed, preferring to sail away with his sea captain whenever he could. Her cordial arrangement with Sebastian had its advantages. She had complete control over her estate, just as she did before her marriage, but now that she had a husband no obnoxious suitors could plague her.

She wondered if Antonio went to sea because of the same restless feeling that pushed her to leave Illyria for a while. Yet now, although she looked forward to donning a mask the next day, she was not anxious. The city would still be waiting for her in the morning. She let a servant undress her for bed.

That night, as the music from drums, fiddles, and raucous voices wafted up to her bedroom window, an old dream came back to her. It was the dream she’d had a dozen times in the first two weeks after she married Cesario and realized that she’d actually married Sebastian. 

It started with her passionately embracing her husband—or some other man, Orsino, even Andrew Aguecheek—that part of the dream varied. In the heat of the embrace, her dress melted off her and she tore away the man’s clothing. Then, under the doublet and hose, she found a body that was distinctly feminine as it pressed against her, breasts against her breasts. Her hand traced the curves of waist and hips. Viola smiled with red, red lips and kissed her until she woke up hot and sweating under the sheets. 

Olivia had tried to ignore the dream at first, but its meaning was too obvious for her to pretend she didn’t understand.


	2. Chapter 2

The array of masks to be bought was dazzling and overwhelming, even now that the festivities were already underway. Some of the masks were sumptuous and gaudy, bedecked with gold leaf and feathers. Others were simple, clean white or black. There were the masks that were obviously for ladies, all with delicate features, some demurely hiding the face and some designed to display the wearer’s beauty rather than obscure it. And then there were the masks for men, outrageous with bulging noses or swooping beaks, teardrop eyes laughing or weeping, exaggeratedly wrinkled brows and cheeks. 

The salesman began by showing Olivia his most expensive masks, eager to make a sale, but Olivia interrupted his well-rehearsed routine to ask about his wares, about the traditions, and about the festivities. Seemingly gratified by her genuine curiosity, the salesman smiled and began to explain the traditions behind the masks.

“This is the _bauta._ Ladies wear it on some occasions, but during carnival it is preferred by many gentlemen, signora. One wears it with a hood, cape, and tricorn hat, like so.” The salesman held the mask up with the accompanying hood, the white of the mask starkly dramatic against the black fabric. The mask was made to cover the entire face. It had a triangular nose and a prominent ridge above the eyes, but instead of having a hole for the mouth, the bottom of the mask ended in an angular jawline that jutted out over the wearer’s mouth and covered down to the chin.

“You see, _signora_, the mouth allows enough room to eat or drink without removing the mask. That is greatly to be desired during carnival.” The salesman smiled. 

“Pray let me try it.”

The salesman tied the mask onto her face and topped it off with the black tricorn. Olivia blinked at the view through the eyeholes, adjusting to the sensation of seeing the world from behind a shield.

“’Tis lighter than I expected,” she said. As she spoke, she realized that the mask changed the timbre of her voice, making it sound a little hollow and a little deeper in her ears.

“A good mask should be comfortable enough to wear all night, should it not?” the salesman asked.

“Indeed.” Olivia studied her reflection in the mirror.

“The hood makes the costume complete, signora. You would be unrecognizable with it.”

Looking in the mirror, Olivia imagined herself into the costume. With the black hood covering her from chin to shoulders, a black cape, and a suit of black, she could be anyone. Just an anonymous young gentleman, perhaps. Suddenly, she saw the appeal. Viola could have done it—she had done it when she dressed as Cesario. Olivia could do the same for just one night.

* * *

“Look at all the masks! Which do you best?” Hero asked her son, bent down next to him so that she could see the masks lining the walls from his view. The harlequins grinned down at her; the faces of elegant ladies peered down at her haughtily.

“That one!” 

Three-year-old Alessandro took his fingers out of his mouth long enough to point at one of the masks high above his head. Hero scooped him up in her arms and stood up, bringing him closer to the masks.

“Which one? Is it this one?” She put her hand on a mask with a huge grin, angling it toward Alessandro. “This one is silly.”

“Do you like this one?”

Beatrice swooped in as if out of nowhere, a mask on her face painted with a harlequin’s green, purple and gold diamonds. The bells on the end of the fool’s cap jangled as she shook her head side to side.

Initially startled, Alessandro got over his fear and giggled. “You’re a fool!”

“If to be a fool is to have a merry disposition and a plentiful wit, I shall take that as a compliment,” Beatrice said with a grin, pulling the mask off. “This one seemed almost to call my name, Hero. I must have it.” She turned toward the proprietor of the shop and caught his attention so that she could haggle with him.

“But what sort of mask will you have, my lady?” the shopkeeper asked of Hero.

Hero looked between the wall of masks and Beatrice, dubious. “Must I go masked? I’m not sure that I am so fond of masquerades.”

“Cousin, this is Carnival! What is the point of coming to Venice during the Carnival if you will not go masked?” Beatrice said. “When did this disliking happen? You have graced more than a few dances, masked, at mine uncle’s.”

Hero frowned slightly. “I would not stay away from any revelry if you and Benedick were there. But I’ve had a dislike for disguises since... since the last masque my father held before I was married.”

Beatrice’s expression soured as she realized what Hero meant. Of course, when Pedro had approached Hero pretending to be Claudio, the ruse had not tricked her. She knew the prince on sight, his mask notwithstanding, and when she correctly named him, Pedro freely admitted both his identity and his embassy. There was no deception there. But if Hero could have foreseen the path she would walk down when she consented to marry Claudio, she would have turned away. Some four years or so after their wedding, she bitterly regretted it.

“My lord the count is not here, cousin. We came to give you a break from married life,” Beatrice reminded her gently. “Let us pick out a mask for you, so that when we go to the festivities you can make some better memories.”

The shopkeeper showed her masks covered in velvet and satin. He offered her masks embroidered with seed pearls and hung with bright colored glass that sparkled when it caught the light. Hero could imagine the coquettes that should wear the half-masks that he showed her. But she couldn’t imagine herself in any of the masks that she turned over in her hands as Beatrice gave her opinion and Alessandro enthusiastically encouraged her.

“How does this stay on the wearer’s face?” she asked as she turned an oval-faced mask over in her hands. “I see no ribbon.”

The shopkeeper took it from her and pointed out the button hidden inside the lips of the mask. “The lady wearing the mask bites down on this,” he said. “Biting down holds the mask onto her face. Because of this, she cannot speak while she is wearing the mask. That’s why the mask is called 'the mute servant.'”

“Not that one, then,” Hero said in a brittle voice. 

“For what purpose would any woman consent to be silent for a whole night?” Beatrice asked, sounding disgusted. 

The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows. “It heightens the mystery, madam.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes. Hero was also unconvinced. When a woman was silent, men could put whatever words they liked into her mouth.

Eventually she bought a mask, one decorated with dangling beads and gold arabesques. It was a pretty thing, and Hero decided that when she returned to Florence it would hang on her wall. Unlike the servetta muta, it left her mouth and the lower half of her face uncovered. 

She was not as proud of her purchase as Beatrice was of her fool’s cap, however, or as proud as Alessandro was of the child-sized goblin face that the shopkeeper found for him. He immediately wanted his mother to tie his mask onto his face so he could wear it as they exited the shop and found a gondola to convey them back to their rented _palazzo_. He waved enthusiastically at the gondolier, who pretended to be terrified of the little goblin and then produced a small sweet from his pocket for Alessandro to suck on as they rode through the canals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, I haven’t actually decided how many chapters I’m going to divide the story into. I initially put [x/3] because I figured that looked less intimidating than [x/?]. The story is about 5,000 words long right now, so I promise it’s not going to be 20 chapters.
> 
> Now, whyyy did I have to put a child in this fic? I hate writing children. I couldn’t come up with a name I actually liked for Hero’s son until I had the idea of naming him in honor of one of my former professors. The file name on my computer for this fic is simply “carnivalesque” because he used that word about fifty times while teaching _Twelfth Night._


	3. Chapter 3

It was still possible to be nervous behind a mask, Olivia realized while climbing the front steps to the embassy. She fiddled with her invitation, absent-mindedly folding and crinkling the slip of paper. Her hose didn’t make her feel like a fashionable young man—they just felt at once constricting and indecently revealing.

But the servant accepted her crumpled party invitation with a simple, “Very good, sir,” and led her to the source of the music and laughter. 

“Welcome, stranger,” said the plague doctor who loomed in front of her. 

With that, she remembered that not one of the assembled guests had ever met her before. Whether she could pass for a young man or no, they would not look past her mask and see the Countess Olivia, the subject of endless murmuring in Illyria, the target of wondering or concerned glances from Maria and others that she pretended not to see. A weight lifted off her shoulders.

And so, she mingled with the crowd. No one was without a mask, even the ambassador and his wife, the hosts. Olivia was far from the only _bauta_ in the mix. They stood out like crows in the middle of a crowd of strutting peacocks, bright-plumed parrots, cardinals and jays. 

One of the other _bautas_ greeted her in a deep, booming voice and invited her to join a contest already in progress. It seemed a group of young men were comparing the length of the swords they wore at their sides—but she had none, and she told them so with an apologetic smile and set off a wave of raucous laughter. Almost every guest was already deep in their cups or on their way toward drunkenness.

“You look a bit dazed, my lord,” said a woman wearing a feathered half-mask, touching Olivia’s arm. “I think this is your first time at Carnival.”

“Is it so obvious?” Olivia asked. 

“You must let me take you in hand, my lord. I have guided many a young gentleman through his first time at Carnival—and introduced them to other pleasures as well.” She smirked.

Olivia’s cheeks flushed hot, a confusing mixture of emotions tangling in her stomach. If a man had said that to her, she wouldn’t have been partly _pleased_.

The woman put out her hand, true to her word. Taking the hand, Olivia pulled it under her mask to press the fingers to her lips. 

“I am loath to say it, my lady, but I do not think that I was born to such pleasures as you have in mind,” Olivia said. “But I thank you for the invitation.”

“I pray you, don’t be shy!” the woman said.

Olivia hesitated, then shook her head. “May Aphrodite send you a fitter student than me,” she said. She moved on through the crowd.

Many alcoves and corners inside the _palazzo_ were taken up by pairs of lovers, some intimately entwined, and Olivia averted her eyes from those. But as she walked, she spied a pair composed of a handsome woman and a man talking with her, somewhat apart from anyone else, who were clearly not lovers.

The woman had a mask of rose-pink trimmed with dangling beads and gilded arabesques, but she had pushed her mask up at some point, presumably tired of wearing it. Now perhaps she had cause to regret her decision, because her face was fair enough to tempt any man. The one she had drawn in wore a fox face and leaned toward her domineeringly, all but backing her against the garden wall, leering underneath his mask. 

Olivia could tell the woman was disgusted, but she was at pains to hide it from the fox. It was an attitude Olivia recognized. She remembered with a wave of frustration every pernicious suitor she had ever had—Orsino was only one of several. As much as she had loathed being praised in his sonnets, she was at least grateful that he had rarely succeeded in forcing his company on her. This woman had no such luck. She threw occasional glances toward the crowd as if hoping for rescue. Olivia had to step in.

“Cousin!” she greeted the woman, making sure to lower her voice to a more masculine register. “Is this where you got to? I’ve been looking all over for you—and so has Maria!”

The woman turned a wide smile on Olivia, her eyes full of gratitude. Olivia’s heart beat quicker for a second. She had never seen a smile that made a face light up more beautifully—and she had never felt so much like a gallant rescuer before. Then the woman was speaking.

“’Twas you and Maria who wandered away from me!” she said. She put out her hand for Olivia to take and at the same time smiled apologetically at the fox faced man. 

“Pray excuse me, sir. I must rejoin my friends, or they will think some disaster has befallen me.” She laughed charmingly and the fox bowed, forced to let his prey escape. Olivia led the woman away, but before they had gone ten paces, she was satisfied that the man had gone, and she released the woman’s hand, not wanting her to think she had been taken from the frying pan into the fire.

“Forgive my boldness, my lady,” Olivia said, “but I did think that perhaps you wished someone would cut in. I will not detain you any longer.”

“Your boldness does you credit, sir,” the handsome woman said. “Or perhaps I should say your discernment. Allow me to thank you—I am so, so grateful.” She smiled and the tension fell off her shoulders.

“I am honored to have done you service, my lady.”

“Are you a knight errant, looking for damsels to render service?” 

“I am not a wandering knight by nature, my lady. I merely recognized the signs of one who wishes they were somewhere else.”

“Surely, we can stop being so formal, knight. What is your name?”

Olivia nearly swallowed her tongue, realizing she hadn’t provided herself with any suitably masculine pseudonym. “My name is—Oliver,” she managed. The handsome woman had obviously noticed the hesitation, and Olivia couldn’t guess what she thought of it. But the woman didn’t challenge her.

“My name is Hero,” she said, curtsying slightly. 

Olivia hastily dropped into a bow.

“Is your Maria here with you tonight? Or is she a fiction?” Hero asked. It took Olivia a second to remember the device she had invented on a moment’s notice.

“Maria is a dear friend of mine, but she is back in Illyria. If she had come, then I could not have refused to let Toby come, and I do not wish to witness the spectacle of my cousin making an obnoxious fool of himself at Carnival.” 

Hero laughed, and Olivia immediately wanted to make her laugh again. 

“Is Toby Maria’s husband?” Hero guessed.

“Aye, but do not ask me why in heaven’s name Maria married him, for I do not know,” Olivia said. 

“Many have thought the same, no doubt, about my cousins Beatrice and Benedick,” Hero said. “But in truth they are the happiest couple I know. Happier by far than some.” Her smile grew too wide.

“Perhaps it is unwise to judge a marriage from the outside,” Olivia said. “Only two people can say if it goes well or ill.”

“And those two may choose to keep their own counsel, whether the marriage be well or ill.”

“Very true, madam,” Olivia said.

“But what a happy topic we have chosen!” Hero said after a second’s pause. “Let us talk of the weather, instead, or the wine, or something equally dull.”

“Marriage is generally supposed to be a happy subject,” Olivia said.

“Do you suppose it to be so?” Hero asked.

“Come, come, the weather will be our theme, as you did say. The night is very dark. There are some stars out. The moon is a quarter full.”

Hero laughed. “I see you are learned in astronomy, sir. Alas, I am ignorant.”

“I could teach you, if you wished it.”

“I would gladly learn from you. Shall we have some wine while you lecture me?”

Within a moment the two of them were seated together, each with a glass of deep red wine. Olivia kept up a stream of prattle about the stars—she said that she was born under the sign of Virgo, and that explained why she liked fish; that Toby was a great drinker because he was born under a wet star; and that her motley fool was born under a dry one. Hero replied that her cousin was born under a star that danced. Then Hero told stories about Beatrice, and Olivia told stories about Maria. In her stories, Maria had never been her waiting gentlewoman, only her cousin, for Oliver was not intimate with any female servant of his. 

Soon they were speaking freely on every topic. They praised or derided the masks that passed them by. They spoke of poetry and songs. They found that they shared an opinion on sad songs: both were fonder of them now than they had been in their youth. On some old, famous songs their opinions differed, and they cheerfully accused each other of heresy. 

Privately, Olivia diagnosed her own symptoms: she had fallen in love again. How quickly she could catch the plague.

They were not interrupted until almost two hours later, when Hero’s two cousins arrived, the husband leaning heavily on his wife. Both had been drinking, unsurprisingly. They told Hero she must come and be the judge of some sort of contest between them. Olivia couldn’t be sure what the contest was, since the two of them were two distracted by arguing who would be the winner to explain properly. She hid a laugh behind her mask. But she was disappointed to see Hero go.

“My lady, may I see you again?” she asked quickly before Hero could be dragged away.

Hero looked surprised, but Beatrice cut in before she could speak. “Tomorrow night we go to dance at the house of Philario the Roman. His door is always open to any strangers who wish to carouse.”

“Thank you, madam,” Olivia said with a smile. She turned back toward Hero. “May I see you there?”

“It would give me great pleasure,” Hero said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long. I don't even have an excuse.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated <3


End file.
